Mont Blanc de Courmayeur

4,748 m

'Mont Blanc of Courmayeur' — the Italian shoulder of Mont Blanc, named for the Aosta valley town directly below it. Courmayeur itself derives from Latin curia maior ('the larger court'), referring to a medieval administrative centre.

Card

Coordinates45.8298° N · 6.8628° E

UIAA rank№ 02 / 82

CountriesItaly

Normal gradePD · peu difficile

First ascent1822 · F. Clissold with guide Joseph Marie Couttet

Typical seasonJuly to September

Photo of Mont Blanc de Courmayeur — Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Idéfix~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 3.0

Subsidiary summit on the south-east ridge of Mont Blanc, lying within Italy. Usually traversed as part of an ascent of Mont Blanc from the Italian side.

History

The Italian shoulder of Mont Blanc, sitting on the rim of the Brenva face at the head of the Peuterey ridge. It has no independent normal route: climbers reach it only as a stop on the Peuterey integral, the Brouillard ridge, or the Innominata ridge — three of the longest and most committing approaches to Mont Blanc. The first ascent is conventionally credited to the Peuterey ridge pioneers, the party of Lord Wentworth (Paul-Anton Noel King) with the Courmayeur guide Émile Rey in the 1880s, but the summit is so close to Mont Blanc proper that early traversers rarely bothered to record it as a separate ascent.

Location

Summit · huts that serve as bases for routes on this peak

Major routes

Detour from Mont Blanc summit (Italian summit)

PD · peu difficile

Vertical / summit day80 m gain · 30m

Almost always bagged as a short out-and-back from the main Mont Blanc summit — a 5–10 minute exposed snow-ridge walk south to the Italian high point (4748 m). Climbed by virtually any party doing the Goûter or Trois Monts route who realises it counts as a separate 82-list summit.

From the Brouillard / Peuterey ridge

D · difficile

Vertical / summit day3,100 m gain · 12h

Reached via the upper Brouillard ridge from the Eccles bivouac — a serious multi-day expedition. Few parties target Mont Blanc de Courmayeur directly; most arrive at the summit while traversing from Picco Luigi Amedeo or completing the Peuterey integrale.

Huts on this route

Bivacchi Eccles (Lampugnani / Crippa)3,852 m
Rifugio Monzino2,590 m

Featured in tours

Peuterey Integral3-4 daysTD

Nearby huts

Bivacchi Eccles (Lampugnani / Crippa)CAI · unguarded (always open)3,852 m Rifugio MonzinoCAI · mid-June to mid-September2,590 m Bivacco Piero CraveriCAI · unstaffed (year-round access)3,490 m

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